I created a list of the things that went wrong throughout a past vacation, which was the final roundup of a summer I misused, a summer in which I felt terribly unsatisfied. I tie it to thoughts about the 10 virgins as part of my process to grasp the experience.

I leaked oil all summer. My impatience became the source of the leak by not resting and trusting in Jesus. I leaked a little oil every time I did not rest in Him because I was not waiting in focused belief. Waiting in focused belief means having confidence in my relationship with Him to a point that the circumstances and appearances don’t distress me.

When I fail, I get distressed. When I get distressed, I rely more on myself and become more acutely aware of my circumstances and all the things that distress me. That makes me try harder, taking my eyes further from the Lord, and entering a downward spiral, leaking all my oil. At the point the Lord and Master comes, I am not ready because the distress has leaked the oil. I am running around trying to find my peace (a little oil) so I can hear and respond to the Lord, while those who maintained their focused faith had plenty of oil and their souls were ready for the Lord.

The war between a physical man of planet earth who has much or most of his self-image based on his production or ability to produce is a major part of this scene. The warring enemy to this human identity is a relationship with Jesus which requires being in relationship. Circumstantial productivity is a by-product and not the focus. I am unable to produce anything which will make Him love me or approve of me more. We are in relationship, like the friend who cheers your world by just the sight of him or her down the hall without even speaking. It is who they are. It is the relationship.

I had great ambitions for that vacation. All I wanted or needed to produce failed. I thought it was about the doing, producing, reading, praying business. It wasn’t. It was about having my lamp full in a focused, believing, relationship. It was about separating myself from my circumstances to enjoy loving the Lord so our relationship could be stronger than the situations and my own fantasy about being productive. It was about settling down to be His, especially when I’m a failure by all my own measures – a place of ultimate peace and security in Him. God was loving me all summer, and especially on my vacation in an effort to capture me into His peace and joy. He spent His summer fishing for me. I was the lost lamb He wandered and searched to find.

The light slowly began to dawn on me that God was trying to help me accept that He really loves me. He was proving it by allowing me to get myself in a situation in which I had no choice but see His love and accept it.  In my own eyes I had failed utterly and completely. I had nothing in my hands that I could use to validate myself from any standard I hold, including that of connecting up openly with the Lord.

It was reflectively being in the belief of failure with those related feelings towards myself that I carried when I turned to look into His face. There was no place to run and hide. Everything had bottomed out. I had to face the music and look to Him. I believed that He loved me. It became more than just an idea or concept. It became more of a personal, internalized acceptance. The face that looked back at me was not one of rejection or punishment or disappointment or any negative or derogatory thing. It was the face that said, “Everything is okay because we still belong to each other. I am so glad you’re mine.”

As I reflect over that summer, I began to see it as an intense session of healing instead of hurt and disappointment. I really think it was a time in which God wanted me to move closer into His arms and further away from the accusatory, blame centered, rejection-mode way of this world which many of us have allowed to become the way we relate to ourselves.

His face is the face everyone dreams of seeing. Yet, his face is the first one we turn from when we look at ourselves through our own eyes and the eyes of the world. But, His face is there. His face can be seen. He really wants us to see Him looking at us, looking into us, showing us that the worst we are is nothing to fear. He wants us to know that He meant it when He said that “Perfect love casts out all fear.” He wants me and those like me to see the perfect face of love looking at us, drawing us closer to Himself.

Matthew 25, the story of the ten virgins, talks to me about my relationship with the Lord when He is out of sight, how I react. I can wait in peace and love for the one I trust. I can wait in boredom and distress. I can wait being active in my faith, or I can wait in fear of judgement and punishment. How I/we wait will indicate whether I/we have oil in our lamp or not when the Lord comes to us.